True Shot (28 page)

His brain went blank when her tongue glanced off his, and all the blood in his body seemed to rush to one place and he went instantly, painfully hard. Oh, Jesus, kissing her made the top of his head feel like blowing off.

Yet, as much as he wanted to start easing her clothes off and touching her everywhere possible, kissing her soft skin and making her tremble for him, he forced himself to back off and breathe. He didn’t release her, though. He held her close against him, swaying some in the night air, the ebb and flow of waves and the soft murmur of voices far below a backdrop to the moment.

As he held her, smoothing his hands over her back in soothing caresses, he focused on trying to get her to relax against him. It took several minutes before he actually felt the tension begin to leave her body.
Finally.

“I wish things could stay just like this,” she whispered.

“This
is
pretty nice.” Being naked would have been even better. Exactly the right thing to think, dumbass, when you’re trying to control yourself. And then he imagined her palm-sized breast cupped in his hand, his thumb sweeping back and forth over a bare nipple. Shit, shit, shit. So not helping.

Her warm hands bracketed the sides of his face, and their eyes met. He saw invitation in hers and didn’t have to be asked twice. When he kissed her this time, he backed her against the glass door and trapped her there with one hand braced against the glass and the other cupping the back of her head. His thigh nudged between hers, and he felt her intake of breath as his thumb stroked the delicate skin under her ear.

He kissed her for a long time, nipping at her bottom lip, tangling his tongue with hers, their bodies pressed close together but all attention focused on what they could do to each other’s mouths and tongues.

Heaven, Mac thought. Absolute fucking heaven.

And he didn’t want it to end, didn’t want to walk away from this . . . ever.

He drew back from the kiss reluctantly, watching her face, her eyes, for a clue to the next move. She looked deliciously dazed, slate eyes dark and heavy, mouth already swollen from their kisses.

He ached to carry her to bed and make love to her all night. Ached to thrust inside her, into all that scorching, wet, Sam heat. But he forced himself to hold back. It had to be her move. Maybe it was too soon for her, at a too-vulnerable time. The last thing he wanted to do was take advantage. Not to mention the fact that she still had a bullet wound in her shoulder.

He hated his gentleman genes with a fiery passion right now.

In the next moment, she leaned in, taking his mouth with hers, and he reveled again in the soft warm play of her lips, the gentle sweep of her tongue against his. Catching his hand in her silken hair, he cupped the back of her head, pressing her closer, taking her deeper, his breath sucking in as her right hand slipped under his shirt and up, up, warm palm caressing his nipple so firmly that his eyes tried to roll back. Good sign.
Excellent
sign. But still . . .

He broke off the kiss with a mighty effort, his body screaming at him to stop thinking and go with the moment. It took all of his will to ignore the growing urgency. “Shouldn’t we take it easy? Your shoulder—”

“Is fine. Don’t make me beg.”

He grinned. “No begging, huh? That’s too bad. I like begging.”

“There’s still time. Just please tell me you have protection.”

“A smart man never leaves home without it,” he said, patting his back pocket, where he kept his wallet, a condom tucked inside.

Smiling, she captured his mouth again, the stroke of her tongue against his just about setting him off like a rocket. He shifted to walk her back into the closest bedroom. They paused at the foot of the bed, still kissing, breath coming faster now, ragged and urgent. Mac’s fingers undid the buttons of her shirt, sure and quick, eager, until he could nudge the flannel off her shoulders with both hands. She dropped her arms straight, letting the shirt pillow around their feet. He hated seeing the white bandage at her shoulder, the stark reminder that she was injured, that this might cause her pain. Her strong fingers on his jaw demanded that he shift his gaze from her shoulder to her eyes.

“It’s fine,” she said, voice low and raspy, sexy as all fucking hell. “
I’m
fine.”

He had to focus on breathing as she undid her bra and let it drop, then he watched, fascinated at the darker tone of his own skin against the vanilla of hers as he smoothed a hand down between full, palm-sized breasts tipped with rosy nipples. When he cupped one, his thumb stroking the nipple into pointed awareness, she dropped her head back on a shaky moan.

Need spiked at the sight of her arched neck, his cock so hard and ready that it neared painful. But he was determined to take his time, to show her how much he cared, that this wasn’t just about sex.

Trailing kisses over her temple, her cheek, her eyelids, he caressed her breasts, kissed his way down to the hollow of her throat, where he played his tongue against her skin, tasting salt and soap and Sam. At the same time, her hands went to work on the fly of his jeans, and his heart kicked into a more frantic gear, an insistent, surging pulse in his groin.

When he urged her down onto the bed and braced himself above her, every cell in his body rejoiced as she slid her hands down his hips, taking his jeans with them. The material of his boxers hung up on his jutting cock, and he held his breath as her hands freed him from the confines of his underwear. He was almost self-conscious at how huge and hard he was, clear evidence of how badly he wanted her, but then she wrapped her fingers around his heat and squeezed, and his elbows threatened to buckle.

She’d stroked him twice, sliding her palm over the head of his cock, gathering some of the moisture at the tip for easier gliding, when he tensed, his balls already drawing up for the countdown, and put a hand over hers. “Stop,” he choked out.

A satisfied smile curved her full lips, a sexy, lung-sucking heat in her dark blue eyes, and he felt himself start to fall head over heels, a breathless dive of rushing air and hot, stroking rays of sun against his skin.

He helped her wriggle out of her drawstring pants and panties, revealing miles of creamy skin, firm muscle and soft angles, all for him. She bent one leg, parting her legs for him, and his grin grew at the explicit invitation. Yet he ignored it, focusing instead on sucking her right nipple into his mouth, his thumb and forefinger tending to the other, plucking and squeezing and kneading while his tongue and teeth did similar tricks, until she arched into his mouth, hooking one calf around his thigh and pressing her flat belly against his cock.

That part of him jerked at the contact, weeping for some attention, but he denied that for now, having to grit his teeth, instead easing back from her so he could trail his fingers down her ribs, caressing and tickling, paying close attention to the gasps and hitches in her breathing. He had to force himself to go slow, when all he wanted to do was plunge and take and fuck. At the juncture of her thighs, he stilled his fingers, smiling at the cessation of her breath, the air thickening with anticipation.

“Please,” she whispered, her mouth against his shoulder.

Ah, Sam begging. Who knew it would be so sweet . . . and
hot
?

He teased her first, with just the tips of his fingers, kissing her at the same time, his tongue stroking and exploring as his fingers inched toward her wetness then retreated. With his palm cupping her hip, he felt the tiny jerks in her muscles as she fought the urge to press against him.

“I want you, Mac. I want you now,” she breathed against his mouth, nails of one hand digging into the skin of his upper arm enough to leave marks as her other hand groped for his cock, gripping and stroking and trying to angle him for penetration.

He chuckled at her desperation, swallowed at the heaven of her hand on him, the almost overwhelming urge to let go.
Easy, boy. Not yet.
“Just hold on. I’m not done playing yet.”

She set her teeth against the join of his neck and shoulder and groaned. “I’m so going to kill you when this is over.”

He released a choked laugh. “Trust me. You’re killing me now.”

Then, clamping down on the need, the want, the holy-shit-I’m-going-to-fucking-die-if-I-don’t-get-inside-her-soon, he shifted on the bed, easing his torso down between her legs, and laved his tongue into her belly button, loving the quivers in her muscles, the faint, musky scent of woman on the verge. Smoothing his hands over her inner thighs, he massaged and kneaded until the muscles relaxed, until her hands tangled in his hair, and she let her legs fall open wider. He could smell her desire now, heady and so intoxicating that he had to take a moment to think cold thoughts to keep from losing it. The North Pole . . . Alaska . . . Iceland . . . Antarctica . . .

She jerked and gasped at the first touch of his tongue, fingers tugging at his hair, and he smiled. This was going to be so much fun. Holding her steady with one arm snugged around her thigh, he played her with his mouth and fingers, sweeping into her with the flat of his tongue, sliding one finger, then two, inside her heat at the same time. Within minutes, she cried out and bucked, muscles bunching and shuddering, thighs trying to clamp around his head to stop him, or perhaps slow him down. He held her open and continued the onslaught, lapping at her heat, the flood of her desire, focusing on drawing out the contractions of her body around his fingers, the building tension in the muscles of her thighs, the sobbing sounds of her breath.

She peaked again, a hard, shuddering, body-rigid orgasm, before he gentled his strokes, easing her down until she could breathe and her thighs began to relax some. As he kissed his way over her stomach, pausing to play awhile with pebble-hard nipples, drawing a few more breathy hitches out of her, he couldn’t stop himself from grinning like an idiot.

“You okay?” he murmured when he finally made it back to her lips and kissed her, a deep, drugging melding of lips and tongue and teeth.

“Mmm,” she replied, too sated to do more than hum.

Her fingers trickled through the soft hair at his nape, and he closed his eyes as she rubbed the sensitive spot right behind his ear. He thought she might drift off to sleep now and wondered what he would do if she did. Well, that was easy: He’d go to bed with an aching hard-on or take care of it all by his lonesome, which wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying, but if he had to—

She shifted, pushing him onto his back and straddling his thighs, rising above him with wild, sweat-damp hair and sex-glazed eyes. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she wrapped long fingers around his cock and pumped him, somehow knowing just what he liked, the pressure, the glide and slide and thrill . . . but not too much, not too firm to send him careening over the edge. He loved the way her dusky gaze took him in, roaming his features, her soft lips curving as though she approved of everything she saw. So . . . fucking . . . sexy.

She leaned down and nibbled at his chin, the corner of his mouth, then murmured against his lips, “I want you inside me.”

He didn’t have to be told twice.

With a growl, he rolled her under him, muscles jumpy and jittery. After snagging his jeans from beside the bed, he fumbled out his wallet and then the condom. He had to hold his breath while he rolled it on. But then he was guiding himself to her, clenching his teeth until his jaw ached, come on, hold on, hold on, and then he was inside her an inch, and the breath hissed through his teeth as, laughing, she arched her hips to take him in another inch, and then another, and then she wiggled just a little, hooked her ankles around his calves and angled just right and daaaaaaaaaaamn, he was all the way in, completely surrounded by the sweetest, hottest, sexiest woman ever.

Breathing through his nose, he ground out a shaky request, “Hold still.”

She obliged—mostly—only her hands continuing their exploration of the muscles in his back, then down over his butt where she gripped hard and whimpered a little, trying to pull him deeper, her breath uneven in his ear, her hips straining under him.

He rested his forehead against her cheek and gathered the tatters of his control. Women were so damn lucky. They could come all night without needing time to recover. Or maybe he was just so far gone for this woman that he’d never be able to control himself for as long as he wanted to. Closing his eyes, he pulled air in through his teeth as he eased almost completely out of her wet heat and then sank back in, again and again, urged on by the way her head arched back into the pillow and her throat worked on a ragged swallow.

Her long, low moan stole his ability to think. He thrust harder and faster, gathering her close against him, pumping his hips, feeling the pause just before she peaked, loving the anticipation in the tense lines and curves of her body. When all that wet heat contracted around his cock, light exploded behind his eyes. For long seconds, he heard nothing but the roar in his ears, felt nothing but the intensity of a shattering climax and the rush of heat rising, gushing, spilling out of him.

“Ah, God, Sam,” he groaned. “Sam.”

Even when the orgasm eased off, leaving him only semi-erect, he kept thrusting, helpless to stop the shudders coursing through him, helpless to back off the ultrasensitive sensations of being this close to Sam, of being inside Sam. He didn’t want it to end, he never wanted it to end.

And then, unexpectedly, her body convulsed in his arms again, her mouth open against his shoulder in an intense, silent cry, her breath heaving against his sweat-slicked skin. She gasped out something, her own name, he thought at first—obviously he’d misheard—and then she was clinging to him, her face buried against his neck, her body limp and struggling for air.

Smiling, giddy even, he shifted so he could kiss her. One of her hands gripped tight around his forearm as he cradled her head in both palms and lazily kissed her, stroking into her mouth with his tongue, tender and loving. The remaining tension trembled out of her muscles, and she went even more lax against him.